No somos llamados a un lugar sino para servir...

Hola Familia!

My third week in the Washington, Vancouver Mission has been great! Can't believe I'm already halfway through a transfer.

On Wednesday, we had a multi-zone conference here in Portland. We heard some amazing talks from President and Sister McAteer and the local stake president, President Dickie, and his wife. The Spirit was so strong and it made me even more motivated to keep working hard. Then we received some trainings from the APs, Portland zone leaders, and President and Sister Gamett of the mission presidency. I learned about being obedient and using the Book of Mormon more with my investigators. Then we had a testimony meeting where we heard from all of the missionaries going home at the end of this transfer. I had never been to a zone conference like that before, but I loved it.

Then, as if the Spirit couldn't get any stronger, we got to go to the Portland Temple on Thursday! It was special because, since it's just outside the mission, we're only allowed to go twice a year and I got to go! One of the most beautiful temples I've ever been to.

Saturday, we had ward mission correlation meeting and all of the members present were impressed by the work Elder Valentine and I have been doing with our ward mission leader. How we're able to communicate and record everything with our devices and have a more spear-headed, organized effort It motivated them to be more involved in the mission effort which, in turn, motivated us even more. One of the best principles that has come from Preach My Gospel is that, as missionaries, we teach people instead of lessons. Meaning that we work with people's individual needs and help them to progress towards conversion instead of just giving them a robotic lesson.

Yesterday, we had stake conference. We were really hoping our investigator, Michelle, would be able to attend, but when we went to pick her up from the care facility she lives at, it turned out that she was still sick from pneumonia and wasn't able to go. Fortunately, she told us this with a Book of Mormon on her lap with a bookmark in Alma chapter 4! We just got her to start reading on Thursday and she's a quarter of the way through! "This is a lot more interesting than I thought" she said. So we have high hopes for Michelle. Her health just needs to improve for her to be able to be baptized so keep her in your prayers.

Lastly, after a long afternoon of failing to be able to visit people on our ward focus list yesterday, we received a referral from a temple visitor's center sister. His name was Justin and he had just been to the visitor's center that day. We looked for his address which was perfectly between us and our dinner appointment so we contacted him a few minutes later and he is Golden. 50 year old, buddhist, vietnamese man who was mesmerized by the organization of the Church and our focus on The Family. He said he has a bunch of festivities and traditions to do for Chinese New Year at the beginning of February, but he says after that, he'd love for us to visit him! What a miracle to have found him and so conveniently. The Lord really doesn't do random.

Well it's been great and I'm ready for another hardworking week here in Portland. Thank you for the emails and love and support. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Tucker

Second Week in The Vancouver, Washington Mission (Portland)

Hola Familia!

Another good week here in Portland! I've started to get used to the differences in work over here and to the personality of my comanion, Elder Valentine and we've been getting some good work done together.

So for anyone that still doesn't know, the motto/slogan for the city of Portland is 'Keep Portland Weird' and I can tell you that they do a great job of staying true to that goal, especially my area, Cherry Park. It's almost impossible to see two people of the same ethnicity walking on the same street althpugh there are a lot of tongans which is pretty cool and there's so much art and LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter signs and recreational marijuana is legal haha. And I guess a lot of homeless people around the country migrate over here because they've heard of all the benefits.

On Tuesday, we did exchanges with the zone leaders. I got to work with Elder Vance in his area while Elder Broadbent worked with my companion in Cherry Park. It was really great! Elder Vance went to Perry High School in Chandler, AZ and is cousins with the Vance family in my home ward. He's a really good missionary and I learned a lot from him that I was excited to apply in my area with Elder Valentine.

Like I said last week, there's a lot of less active and part member families in Cherry Park. Luckily, we get to give a lot of service this week. We gave a couple blessings some people that were sick and we helped another family rearrange a bunch of furniture their home. I think service is a great way to gain the trust of people and Heavenly Father blesses us so much because of it. It reminds me of the Book of Mormon when Ammon began his mission to the Nephites. He was captured and brought before King Lamoni who asked "What are you doing here?" and Ammon said that he was just there to serve.

Anyway, Sunday was really cool for a lot of reasons. One of our investigators, Juston attended church, the ward started a new Spanish speaking Sunday school class which I participated in, and we had another lesson with the Matsushima Family. The Matsushimas are a family with three teenage sons, and they're all members except for the Dad, Mark. His name was saved as Mark 'Eternigator' in our cell phone because I guess he's been on and off investigating the church for 14 years. But we feel like now might finally be his time! So we taught him all about gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the importance of it. He committed to study in it everyday and to pray and eventually fast to know that it is true! The Spirit was so strong. And it's so awesome as a missionary to be able to make the promise that if we honestly strive to know if the Book of Mormon is true that we will without a doubt receive an answer through the power of the Holy Ghost. And if we receive that witness we know that all of the Restoration must be true. It's the evidence. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that is a huge blessing in my life.

Things are going well and I have a feeling that they'll be getting even better this week. I'm learning so much and have been keeping up on my good habits. I finally made Elder Valentine help me take down the Christmas decorations so I got one step closer to having a clean, organized apartment haha.

Thanks so much for the love and support!

Love,

Elder Tucker

Some houses have these cool bookcases in front that say take one or leave one so we left a book of Mormon

another pic of our cool ward building constructed in 1929

Avalon theater

playing scatterball with the zone